A couple of weeks ago was a birthday/furlough/vacation extravaganza. I was on furlough for the week, which happened to coincide with my birthday, so Wendy used vacation time to take the week off of work. I opened presents, we had a delicious birthday carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, and we also explored some hiking and biking trails we'd never been to before.
Somme Woods
We started off by visiting the hiking trails at Somme Woods in Northbrook. Unfortunately, they were a big disappointment. The trail was very narrow, with weeds as tall as me on both sides. Although the woods were pretty, I did not enjoy walking through giant weeds. After a quarter of a mile we gave up.
All was not lost, though. We left Somme Woods and drove to a nearby city park (the kind with playgrounds and freshly mowed grass and no man-sized weeds) where we had a nice picnic lunch. Then we went across the street and got ice cream from Graeter's, which is an ice cream chain we first visited in Cincinnati last year on our trip to the Serpent Mound (see this post).
Sun Lake Forest Preserve
The next day we went on a hike at the Sun Lake Forest Preserve in Lake County. This trail was very wide, much more my style:
We went on a 2.5 mile hike, stopping at one point to take a picture of Sun Lake way off in the distance.
The only drawback to this hike was the heat. We didn't realize how hot it was when we started, and were both beginning to melt by the end. Now that I think about it, there really weren't that many trees for a so-called forest preserve. It would have been nice to have a bit more shade on this hike.
Long Prairie Trail
The next day we went for a bike ride on the Long Prairie Trail, and it was fantastic. The trail was mostly flat and the weather was perfect (sunny, in the 70s, with a cool breeze). We rode through a couple of small towns, past a lot of cornfields, and through numerous "tree tunnels" that provided lots of shade. The trail is 15 miles long, but after 7 miles we decided to take a short break and turn around, so we rode 14 miles round trip. That's our longest ride of the year.
Here's the start of the trail:
One of many tree tunnels:
One of many cornfields:
I really liked how the trail had little rest stops off the main trail, so you could take a break without being in the way of other bikers.
We saw several of these "Farm Crossing" signs. I guess it's where tractors and other farm equipment can cross over the trail.
Even though it's a 45-minute drive to get to the trail, this is easily one of my new favorites. I hope to go back there sometime soon and hopefully one day ride all 15 miles of it.